1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a group control apparatus for elevators.
2. Description of the Related Art
Elevator systems are generally a kind of public transportation in which it is usual for an elevator car to convey various kinds of passengers at one time.
Frequency, buildings are shared by a plurality of tenants. Two of the tenants may have a particular relationship with each other, for instance, may be rival companies. Thus, it has become desirable that a person affiliated with one of such two tenants avoid riding on the same elevator car with someone affiliated with the other tenant. Although a group control apparatus for elevators that gives consideration to these circumstances has not yet come into use, some elevators in hotels provide a function which almost meet the above requirements.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 56-17874 discloses an elevator operating system in which a call button is provided in each room of the hotel. When the call button of one of the rooms is operated, and a hall call is subsequently registered, any other hall calls (if there are any) through other call buttons are prevented from being registered. Furthermore, even when there are a plurality of rooms on the same floor as the particular room, information on the arrival of an elevator car is given only to the particular room, so that the caller can avoid coming across others in the elevator hall.
However, the conventional system cannot be applied in exactly the same way for the purpose of preventing members of two rival companies, such as above, from riding coincidentally because such application cannot be realized for the following reasons
(1) The circumstances of a large building are different from those of a hotel in that the registration of other hall call(s) ought not be prevented even when the prevention of an unwanted coincidental ride is desired. Therefore, it is necessary that the other hall call(s) be registered so that different elevator car(s) serve the other caller(s); and
(2) A tenant of a building may occupy a plurality of floors of the building. Therefore, it is necessary that the cars be able to serve between the floors occupied by the same tenant while being unaffected by the prevention of coincidental inter-tenant rides.